Sunday, August 24, 2008

Speaker Pelosi said that impeachment was off the table because she wanted to focus on the Democrats policy agenda.

It may have been the worst political decision in history, or not. It may have been stupid, or genius. Or not.

Now that it's too late to really do anything about the worst administration ever, an administration who sought power so that they could benefit their corporate sponsors and not to conduct their job as President and Executive Branch for the American People, what have we learned, or rather, what does this teach us about some of the Democrats?

I've thought about this a lot, and it came to me the other day. Pelosi, Reid, the stupid Dem strategists, they made 2 mistakes. One, they failed to understand, in part because they "knew" these people, that Bush was not selected to fulfill the duties and obligations of the President of the United States as enumerated in the Constitution, but rather to give the big corporate oligarchs the budget surplus of the Clinton Presidency, and more importantly, unfetter the Corps from the inconvenient eyes of the government and its bothersome regulations.

Secondly, they listened to the media, in part again because they knew them, conventional wisdom, they responded to the gop frames that partisanship was bad for the Democrats. They were determined to prove that they were not going to go on a partisan witchhunt like the gop did to Clinton (and isn't it amazing that the goppers can turn an acknowledged negative action into a political thrust into the Democrats back?) Partisanship is bad says that worthless git Broder, and the Democratic mainstream leadership believed it, and refused to fight the gop with their own weapons.

So impeachment was taken away, and Pelosi and Co blithely ignored the actions of the gop, ignored their politization of the Executive branch, ignored their lies, ignored Frist campaigning against Daschle, ignored gop filibusters and Bush vetoes and the Joe Lieberman factor, just pretended it didn't exist at all, and went about satisfying their legislative agenda.

But what happens when you ignore reality, when you cast yourself, not head in the sand but body in a bubble?

You accomplish precious little, and you tell the electorate that you aren't real sold on your own principles because you won't fight for them.

So here are the lessons learned.

1) Don't listen to the media, their job is to report what you do, not what you "should" do. Anything else is not news, it's lies and opinion meant to protect their own privlege at your expense.

2) Fight for what you value. If you don't value anything, don't fight, but please go away and let someone else in who will fight.

3) Familiarity should, in many cases, breed contempt, not incredulity.

4) If you don't vote for the Democratic nominee, you are just as bad as Dick Cheney, KKKarl Rove, George W Bush, Grover Norquist, Bob Ney, Monica Goodling, Hans Von Spaskey (sp-don't care), Limbaugh, Savage, Coulter, and all the rest of the Kagens and Kristols and gopper thug trolls and pols that have nearly destroyed our Democracy in its 232nd year.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

I just got done watching McCain's daughter talking about the time McCain hosted the DC Press Corps at his Sedona Cabin, via Josh Marshall.

Besides supporting my oft stated position that nothing from the Politico can be trusted, so please don't link to them liberal bloggers, just what the hell is the News Media doing partying with the people they are supposed to report on? I know it's been happening for years, and frankly, that is the root of the problem. Like the Late, Great, Horse said, they're whores.

It's a grotesque conflict of interest and violates everything the press should stand for. Imagine Woodward and Bernstein partying with Tricky Dick, if you can.

The other thing that shows how out of touch these people are, the daughter kept saying their cabin in Sedona, and if you watch the video it's hard to really see the cabin, about the 18 second mark gives you a good shot. That ain't no cabin, people. I just stayed in a cabin in Big Bear, at Big Bear Vacations who I would not recommend ever because they have dirty cabins and don't care about customer service, and McCain's thing is not a cabin, just because it's made of wood does not make it a cabin.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

I've been not blogging for a while, if anybody's noticed, but I aim to be more regular, and more focused. Yes, that's it, a tighter, better blog!!!

Tonight, let's talk about the state of our nation. You may have seen this photo of the Blackwater T-shirted DEA agent during a big medical marijuana bust. And the recent spate of marijuana smuggling arrests trumpeted by the DEA/Justice Department.

Well, I'm sure we're all sleeping better at night knowing that those medical marijuana people and all those dopers are getting busted and harassed for their evil ways, even while that devil Osama bin Laden and his al Queada creation remains thriving in AfghaniPakistan. Right? You all sleep better knowing that, don't you? What, you don't? Well, anyway, if that weren't troublesome enough, I just read this wonderful story about the Mayor of Berwyn Heights adventures with the Marijuana Police. [My bolds]

Mayor Cheye Calvo got home from work, saw a package addressed to his wife on the front porch and brought it inside, putting it on a table. Suddenly, police with guns drawn kicked in the door and stormed in, shooting to death the couple's two dogs and seizing the unopened package. ...[snippage]...

Prince George's County Police Chief Melvin High said Wednesday that Calvo and his family were "most likely ... innocent victims," but he would not rule out their involvement, and he defended the way the raid was conducted. He and other officials did not apologize for killing the dogs, saying the officers felt threatened.

But this line says it all: His [the Mayors] wife spoke through tears as she described an encounter with a girl who used to see the couple walking their dogs.

"She gave me a big hug and she said, `If the police shot your dogs dead and did this to you, how can I trust them?'"

Look. There are several things wrong with these stories. Let's start with the behavior of the police. Yes, we all know they're heroes and put their lives on the line for us, but do they have to treat people and their effects with such disregard? After all, let's not forget, there is first and foremost, a presumption of innocence, regardless of appearances; secondly, the 4th amendment is pretty clear: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Where's the warrant or the reasonable searches, in both of these cases? Does this picture seem reasonable to you?

Pot shouldn't even be illegal, it's a stupid and ridiculous vestige of prohibition, racism (them colored musicians were well known to smoke the stuff and lure impressionable white kids into the evils of Reefer Madness, don't forget), and special interests-cotton, corn, and paper products corporations that didn't want competition from the easy growing weed (good fibers for paper, clothing, seeds for animal feed, vegetable oil etc), hallucinogenic or otherwise.

So instead of going easy on pot growers, instead of mitigating the criminality of the pot industry, we get storm trooper tactics, especially now as Bushco tries to terrorize Americans on general principal I guess as a way of keeping the fear factor going regardless of the source or targets or intents; tension just for the sake of increasing pressure on the American Public.

So I ask you, faithful readers, how can this be, whatever the particulars, how can this be acceptable in America? What has happened to this country of rugged individualists; bold entrepreneurs; no nonsense, hard working, unimpeachable Our Town Americans; that this crap is tolerated, and not just tolerated, but unremarked upon by our media and our leaders?

Is the State of Our Nation one of thuggery, of institutional violence, of the Not Very Great At All Generation? Is that what we have become? And if so, how did we get this way? When did it start, and who started it, and where are these people because I'd like to have them pay a price for what they have wrought. And I don't mean beating them up and inflicting revenge on them, either.

I think we know who I'm talking about, but I'll spell it out. G-O-P. C-o-n-s-e-r-v-a-t-i-v-e-s. I say this not as a blanket condemnation of all GOPpes and Conservatives, but the generation that was started forming during the days of Richard Nixon, all the Post Goldwater 1964 conservatives who just have so much hate in their hearts, all those charming young republicans like Karl Rove and Lee Atwater and the true believers like G Gordon Liddy, the self aggrandizing users like Gingrich and DeLay, the weak cowards like Jean Schmidt and Dennis Hastert and James Sensenbrenner and Yoo and Gonzo and the Kagens, oh I could go on.

They perpetuate the fear and the thuggery, they revel in the casual indifference America seems to have for these outrages, like the recent ICE raids in Iowa, and it makes me sick to my stomach to think that these people are destroying my country, my world, my environment, my life.

What we do about it is uncertain. It's daunting, it's huge, it may be insurmontable. In which case the planet dies as we know it. Humanity gets tossed on the oil patch of evolution, and it won't take that long to happen. By the end of this century, kiddies. But it may be preventable, it may be subject to change, or at least some mitigation. And that won't happen with any, and I mean ANY, Republicans pulling the levers of power.

So think of this as my rambling and unequivical endorsement of every Democratis candidate for every electable political office. Progressive Democrats are much preferred, but I will take any Dem over any Gopper every time. So put that in your bong and smoke it.